This thread is the official thread to discuss all Aristocrats decks.
Quote from Lauphiette Kincey »
Cause you need synergistic 1-drops
Introduction: The Aristocrats is an agro midrange deck Designed by Sam Black of team SCG for the Pro Tour that occurred last weekend. The name is derived from Cartel Aristocrat and Falkenrath Aristocrat which form the core of the deck through their ability to sacrifice creatures for value. The agro comes from cards like Champion of the Parish, Knight of Infamy, and Silverblade Paladin that can end games quickly, especially when combined. The midrange elements are found in cards like lingering souls which creates a board presence and Skirsdark High Priest which can take over a game by making demons through tricky combat steps.
While the deck is a completely new quantity that is hard to judge going forward, it did end up being the second best performing deck of the weekend with a win rate of 58.3% and ended up winning the entire event and also had several high place finishes at the SCG open that occurred the same weekend so it definitely has credentials.
The Engines: I mentioned engines earlier but here is where I go in depth. The deck has several. With 8 sac outlets, you want to be able to take advantage of binning your own creatures so how do you do that? One of the more obvious ways is going human heavy so that your Falkenrath Aristocrats get bigger and can end games faster. Going human based also improves your aggressive draws by letting you abuse Champion of the Parish.
One of the more underrated cards in standard that is a pivotal card of the deck and an engine in and of itself is Doomed Traveler. This card enables a plethora of tricks and is a central component to the decks nut draws. It's a one drop. It creates value when it dies. If you have a sack outlet, you can win reckoner mirrors by being able to fog attacking reckoners via blocking and sacking before damage. It's also a human for Falkenrath Aristocrat and Champion.
Potentially the most powerful card in the deck if a bit marginal by itself is Skirsdag High Priest. In the midgame, this card has the potential to take over the game by making combat math miserable for your opponent and almost demands that your opponent "waste" removal on him lest they find themselves in an untenable position. Combined with Doomed traveler and Cartel Aristocrat, you can start making demon tokens as early as turn three. Fact: Most decks can't beat 5/5 Flying Demons on turn 3.
Gameplan: The deck by virtue of having so called "internal engines" is susceptible to have multiple different openings as opposed to say a typical Red deck that wants to do the same thing every game. The general idea is to apply pressure from turn one, have better combat math against opposing reckoner decks, and finish with Falkenrath aristocrat over the top, all while being able to take advantage of sacrificing it's own creatures, usually in combat. Due to the power and versatility of the majority of your cards, you can get away with playing a more defensive role against opposing agro decks depending on your draws. Postboard games, the deck can board into a more midrange approach with walkers, tokens and extra removal. Even when your synergies don't line up neatly, you can often get an edge in combat by blocking and then sacking cards to say protect Cartel Aristocrat, giving it protection from color so that it can off an opposing X/2. When your synergies do come online, you do things like make 5/5 flying demons on turn 3 or set up zealous conscripts stealing thragtusks and sacking them so that you gain a beast token. Overall the deck has a lot going for it. With that said, lets dive into a sample decklist:
As you can see, the human theme is indeed heavily supported with 19 total humans for champion and falkenrath. For removal, the deck plays orzhov charm as it kills reckoner without activating the trigger which is relevant and you can make use of all the other modes. Bouncing a restoration angel and reanimating doomed traveler are both common uses. The mana base is less ambitious then it looks since most of your lands produce white for your early drops and caverns let you hedge your creature types when you need to. The most ambitious card in the mana base is vault of the archangel since it never produces colored mana, but it's so incredibly powerful in addition to being your only source of maindeck lifegain that the risks are well worth the benefits.
Board wipe and 13 damage combo? Yes.
Sideboard Options: Blasphemous Act is not only a reset against decks that can bigger then you, it's also a 13 damage combo with reckoner and in fact won Martells seminfal match of the pro tour against the Saito Naya deck. Lingering Souls and Sorin combine to let you grind out control and midrange decks like jund that are trying to beat you through card advantage. Mentor of the Meek usually comes in against these matchups since it turns all your guys into extra cards and is truly broken with lingering souls. If it's not obvious, you're usually boarding out a large subset of your human package when you switch to the Sorin/Souls package. Obzedat often comes along with this package and can simply win games against control decks by himself, simply blinking in and out of play. The rest of the board is fairly intuitive like slip being extra removal, RIP for gravehate, and high priest helping you go bigger.
There are a couple potential changes to the board going forward. The biggest hole you should look to fill is the lack of reach based agro tech. You'll find yourself scooping to turn one noble more often than you would like as the red decks are pretty terrible matchups. The obvious answer is nearhearth pilgrim, but moment of heroism probably works better most of the time and is truly backbreaking when used on reckoner in response to removal. Duress is another card that would be nice to have in the board as an anti-control measure though that may not be necessary as the esper matchup is actually favorable post-board already. If this deck becomes popular, a card that we may have to develop an answer for is Curse of Deaths hold since that blanks the majority of the deck. Other than that, you should be ready to handle most opponents going forward.
I hope everyone else enjoys this deck as much as I do because it greatly rewards those skilled at combat math and it's just a blast to play since your games are always developing differently. Lets see if we can keep this deck tier 1 going forward. I can't wait to hear suggestions for improving the deck.
Matchups: Generally this deck has good matchups across the field. No real blowouts on other side of the spectrum and being 3 colors, you have access to amazing sideboard options. I'll go through the big ones.
Take that supreme verdict.
Esper control: Game one you're slightly unfavofed. Yes, you have several different draws that can put on lots of pressure, but at the end of the day, you're a 30 creature deck like the red based agro decks only we have 6 haste creatures instead of 15+ and no additional reach making us significantly weaker to sweepers then we'd want to be and azorius charm is the nemesis of champion of the parish further minimizing our effective game one openers. Postboard is like night and day however as we massively upgrade our deck while they maybe add 3 marginally useful cards. The sorin package plus Obzedat firmly swing the matchup in our favor games 2 and 3 as there deck is likely not going to be able to profitably interact with all of the moving pieces we're throwing on the battlefield and mentor of the meek potentially lets us outdraw them pre-sphinx's revelation.
Don't leave home without them.
Jund Midrange: This is a pretty grindy matchup. They have a bunch of removal, we have a bunch of creatures. They have bonfire of the damned blowouts, we can deal massive chunks of damage within certain windows and we have reckoner which can mitigate the sting of those bonfires. Game one should be pretty even so all the cards match up well on both sides and it's fairly difficult to get an advantage from a shear cards perspective. Postboard games are similar to the matches against esper only we also get blasphemous act which can be used to just end the game against them. They may side in underworld connections to get ahead on cards on there side, but we can make them pay for those life points there losing. The fact that we have 4 lingering souls postboard even mitigates the value of there Rakdos's Returns.
R/x agro. Draw perfect or lose. It's actually that simple. They have stromkirk noble, we have humans. They have burn spells and hasty creatures and our removal is dismember. In order to get this matchup to a reasonable rate would involve adding actual relevant sideboard cards like nearhearth pilgrim, or better, Moment of heroism. Vampire nighthawk and rhox faithmender are also options, but the former might be too rough on the mana and the latter is possibly too slow. Going deeper into the tank, there's also gloom surgeon, safe passage, pacifism, and fiend hunter. Honestly though, unless there is actually a lot of red in your area or you are a modo grinder, I would simply accept this bad matchup and move on.
This thread is the official thread to discuss all Aristocrats decks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lauphiette Kincey
IMAGE#1
IMAGE#2
Cause you need synergistic 1-drops
Introduction: The Aristocrats is an agro midrange deck Designed by Sam Black of team SCG for the Pro Tour that occurred last weekend. The name is derived from Cartel Aristocrat and Falkenrath Aristocratwhich form the core of the deck through their ability to sacrifice creatures for value. The agro comes from cards like Champion of the Parish, Knight of Infamy, and Silverblade Paladin that can end games quickly, especially when combined. The midrange elements are found in cards like lingering souls which creates a board presence and Skirsdark High Priest which can take over a game by making demons through tricky combat steps.
While the deck is a completely new quantity that is hard to judge going forward, it did end up being the second best performing deck of the weekend with a win rate of 58.3% and ended up winning the entire event and also had several high place finishes at the SCG open that occurred the same weekend so it definitely has credentials.
The Engines: I mentioned engines earlier but here is where I go in depth. The deck has several. With 8 sac outlets, you want to be able to take advantage of binning your own creatures so how do you do that? One of the more obvious ways is going human heavy so that your Falkenrath Aristocrats get bigger and can end games faster. Going human based also improves your aggressive draws by letting you abuse Champion of the Parish.
One of the more underrated cards in standard that is a pivotal card of the deck and an engine in and of itself is Doomed Traveler. This card enables a plethora of tricks and is a central component to the decks nut draws. It's a one drop. It creates value when it dies. If you have a sack outlet, you can win reckoner mirrors by being able to fog attacking reckoners via blocking and sacking before damage. It's also a human for Falkenrath Aristocrat and Champion.
Potentially the most powerful card in the deck if a bit marginal by itself is Skirsdag High Priest. In the midgame, this card has the potential to take over the game by making combat math miserable for your opponent and almost demands that your opponent "waste" removal on him lest they find themselves in an untenable position. Combined with Doomed traveler and Cartel Aristocrat, you can start making demon tokens as early as turn three. Fact: Most decks can't beat 5/5 Flying Demons on turn 3.
Gameplan: The deck by virtue of having so called "internal engines" is susceptible to have multiple different openings as opposed to say a typical Red deck that wants to do the same thing every game. The general idea is to apply pressure from turn one, have better combat math against opposing reckoner decks, and finish with Falkenrath aristocrat over the top, all while being able to take advantage of sacrificing it's own creatures, usually in combat. Due to the power and versatility of the majority of your cards, you can get away with playing a more defensive role against opposing agro decks depending on your draws. Postboard games, the deck can board into a more midrange approach with walkers, tokens and extra removal. Even when your synergies don't line up neatly, you can often get an edge in combat by blocking and then sacking cards to say protect Cartel Aristocrat, giving it protection from color so that it can off an opposing X/2. When your synergies do come online, you do things like make 5/5 flying demons on turn 3 or set up zealous conscripts stealing thragtusks and sacking them so that you gain a beast token. Overall the deck has a lot going for it. With that said, lets dive into a sample decklist:
IMAGE#3 IMAGE#4 IMAGE#5
Deck Creatures(30):
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Doomed Traveler
3 Knight of Infamy
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
4 Boros Reckoner
2 Skirsdag High Priest
2 Silverblade Paladin
2 Zealous Conscripts
4 Cartel Aristocrat
1 Restoration Angel
Spells(6):
4 Orzhov Charm
2 Lingering Souls
Lands(24):
3 Cavern of Souls
1 Vault of the Archangel
4 Godless Shrine
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Blood Crypt
3 Plains
1 Clifftop Retreat
4 Isolated Chapel
Sideboard(15):
3 Tragic Slip
2 Blasphemous Act
2 Obzedat, Ghost Council
2 Lingering Souls
1 Mentor of the Meek
2 Rest in Peace
2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Skirsdag High Priest
As you can see, the human theme is indeed heavily supported with 19 total humans for champion and falkenrath. For removal, the deck plays orzhov charm as it kills reckoner without activating the trigger which is relevant and you can make use of all the other modes. Bouncing a restoration angel and reanimating doomed traveler are both common uses. The mana base is less ambitious then it looks since most of your lands produce white for your early drops and caverns let you hedge your creature types when you need to. The most ambitious card in the mana base is vault of the archangel since it never produces colored mana, but it's so incredibly powerful in addition to being your only source of maindeck lifegain that the risks are well worth the benefits.
IMAGE#6
Board wipe and 13 damage combo? Yes.
Sideboard Options: Blasphemous Actis not only a reset against decks that can bigger then you, it's also a 13 damage combo with reckoner and in fact won Martells seminfal match of the pro tour against the Saito Naya deck. Lingering Soulsand Sorin combine to let you grind out control and midrange decks like jund that are trying to beat you through card advantage. Mentor of the Meek usually comes in against these matchups since it turns all your guys into extra cards and is truly broken with lingering souls. If it's not obvious, you're usually boarding out a large subset of your human package when you switch to the Sorin/Souls package. Obzedat often comes along with this package and can simply win games against control decks by himself, simply blinking in and out of play. The rest of the board is fairly intuitive like slip being extra removal, RIP for gravehate, and high priest helping you go bigger.
There are a couple potential changes to the board going forward. The biggest hole you should look to fill is the lack of reach based agro tech. You'll find yourself scooping to turn one noble more often than you would like as the red decks are pretty terrible matchups. The obvious answer is nearhearth pilgrim, but moment of heroism probably works better most of the time and is truly backbreaking when used on reckoner in response to removal. Duress is another card that would be nice to have in the board as an anti-control measure though that may not be necessary as the esper matchup is actually favorable post-board already. If this deck becomes popular, a card that we may have to develop an answer for is Curse of Deaths hold since that blanks the majority of the deck. Other than that, you should be ready to handle most opponents going forward.
I hope everyone else enjoys this deck as much as I do because it greatly rewards those skilled at combat math and it's just a blast to play since your games are always developing differently. Lets see if we can keep this deck tier 1 going forward. I can't wait to hear suggestions for improving the deck.
IMAGE#7
Matchups: Generally this deck has good matchups across the field. No real blowouts on other side of the spectrum and being 3 colors, you have access to amazing sideboard options. I'll go through the big ones.
IMAGE#8
Take that supreme verdict.
Esper control: Game one you're slightly unfavofed. Yes, you have several different draws that can put on lots of pressure, but at the end of the day, you're a 30 creature deck like the red based agro decks only we have 6 haste creatures instead of 15+ and no additional reach making us significantly weaker to sweepers then we'd want to be and azorius charm is the nemesis of champion of the parish further minimizing our effective game one openers. Postboard is like night and day however as we massively upgrade our deck while they maybe add 3 marginally useful cards. The sorin package plus Obzedat firmly swing the matchup in our favor games 2 and 3 as there deck is likely not going to be able to profitably interact with all of the moving pieces we're throwing on the battlefield and mentor of the meek potentially lets us outdraw them pre-sphinx's revelation.
IMAGE#9
Don't leave home without them.
Jund Midrange: This is a pretty grindy matchup. They have a bunch of removal, we have a bunch of creatures. They have bonfire of the damned blowouts, we can deal massive chunks of damage within certain windows and we have reckoner which can mitigate the sting of those bonfires. Game one should be pretty even so all the cards match up well on both sides and it's fairly difficult to get an advantage from a shear cards perspective. Postboard games are similar to the matches against esper only we also get blasphemous act which can be used to just end the game against them. They may side in underworld connections to get ahead on cards on there side, but we can make them pay for those life points there losing. The fact that we have 4 lingering souls postboard even mitigates the value of there Rakdos's Returns.
R/x agro. Draw perfect or lose. It's actually that simple. They have stromkirk noble, we have humans. They have burn spells and hasty creatures and our removal is dismember. In order to get this matchup to a reasonable rate would involve adding actual relevant sideboard cards like nearhearth pilgrim, or better, Moment of heroism. Vampire nighthawk and rhox faithmender are also options, but the former might be too rough on the mana and the latter is possibly too slow. Going deeper into the tank, there's also gloom surgeon, safe passage, pacifism, and fiend hunter. Honestly though, unless there is actually a lot of red in your area or you are a modo grinder, I would simply accept this bad matchup and move on.
so can we include zombie aristocrat talk or does this have to go under zombies. personally I think skirsdark priest is a wasted stop. it is too narrow of a card anf morbid is harder to achieve while maintaining early game pressure.
The zombies should go in the zombie thread myself. Regarding Priest, it single handedly wins lots of games. How many decks can be a steady stream of 5/5 demons? And besides that, he makes some people use there removal poorly.
In other news, I think MJ has started playing The Aristocrats on his stream. I'll probably check that out latter and possibly link it.
LP, I'm checking your article out as well. Behind all of your swag is the brain of one of the most intelligent Magic players I've ever known. I guess that's one more thing for you to add to the wall of ego that is your Sally sig.
I can go with that. LK, you are the Mace Windu of red mages...cool, tempered logic in deliberation, but capable of just flat kicking tail when the situation warrants it.
well if the priest is that good why do they only run him as a two of in a deck with no draw or card filtering. it was the first card i changed and i played priest a lot last standard.
Yeah, I thought we'd be in the R/x in the Proven section at least.
I don't think R/x is quite the right place for it, since it's white based. I guess they had a hard time choosing a place for us, but I am still surprised.
Will be playing The Aristocrats at FNM tonight, and a GPT on Sunday. Will of course post results. I won the last GPT I entered, so hoping for a good result.
I think the fact that The Aristocrats is still pretty young compared to the decks in the proven that it's here in the established section. That being said, I think Naya Aggro is still young and should've been in the established section as well.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I am passionate, yet I am logical. The fire within me burns, but I am also patient to a point. I am with the Fires of Salvation
The criteria for placing decks in X section was pretty arbitrary. I tried getting us into proven but was apparently overruled. As is, this is where we are and we should make the best of it.
RE Control: You want all of your cards to either be aggressive or to generate card advantage. Depending on your build, I like boarding out High Priest and most of the removal for Souls, Obzedat, Sorin, and Mentor of the Meek.
LP, I'm checking your article out as well. Behind all of your swag is the brain of one of the most intelligent Magic players I've ever known. I guess that's one more thing for you to add to the wall of ego that is your Sally sig.
I can go with that. LK, you are the Mace Windu of red mages...cool, tempered logic in deliberation, but capable of just flat kicking tail when the situation warrants it.
Yeah, conscripts are...really bad against agro. Depending on what you have in your board, you might not even want obzedat since by the time you have 5 mana, they'll have a million guys on board.
Cards you want are slip and any lifegain cards be it Cathedral sanctifier, nearheath pilgrim, or Rhox Faithmender. Lingering souls is actually generally to slow, especially on the draw against blitz, though I wouldn't board them out. Your best strategy is live long enough to stabilize as once you get to that point, you can win with pretty much anything.
Stromkirk noble decks are harder in the sense that the majority of your deck can't block stromkirk, and they have more reach/removal, but they're also a half step slower so you have more time for your slower spells to come online as long as you can dodge some of there reach on the way there.
If you post a list, I can give some more specific sideboard guides as list with and without reckoner are going to vary greatly.
LP, I'm checking your article out as well. Behind all of your swag is the brain of one of the most intelligent Magic players I've ever known. I guess that's one more thing for you to add to the wall of ego that is your Sally sig.
I can go with that. LK, you are the Mace Windu of red mages...cool, tempered logic in deliberation, but capable of just flat kicking tail when the situation warrants it.
Yeah, conscripts are...really bad against agro. Depending on what you have in your board, you might not even want obzedat since by the time you have 5 mana, they'll have a million guys on board.
Cards you want are slip and any lifegain cards be it Cathedral sanctifier, nearheath pilgrim, or Rhox Faithmender. Lingering souls is actually generally to slow, especially on the draw against blitz, though I wouldn't board them out. Your best strategy is live long enough to stabilize as once you get to that point, you can win with pretty much anything.
Stromkirk noble decks are harder in the sense that the majority of your deck can't block stromkirk, and they have more reach/removal, but they're also a half step slower so you have more time for your slower spells to come online as long as you can dodge some of there reach on the way there.
If you post a list, I can give some more specific sideboard guides as list with and without reckoner are going to vary greatly.
Game one, if you can snag a Hellrider with ZC, it looks pretty good if you can curve out and/or have a bunch of Lingering Souls tokens. I agree it is too slow vs Blitz though and should probably be sided out.
I think You probably board:
+3 Nearheath Pilgrim, +2 Tragic Slip, -3 Lingering Souls, -2 Zealous Conscripts.
LK, what's you opinion?
In other news, I went 1-2 at FNM last night.
I had exactly one game where I didn't have to mulligan (out of 8) and one game I had to concede after mull to 3. Was 0-3 in die rolls. Lost to Naya midrange (0-2), Grixis Control (Game one I conceded rather than play a 3 card hand 1-2) and beat Solemn10's Jund (2-0).
I'm going to assume that this was part bad luck and part unfamiliarity with the deck. Testing against Solemn10 after the event was much better. We'll see how the GPT goes tomorrow.
I think I'm going to run the list I posted above. I found that Boros Reckoner made a lot of my hands awkward and people were able to play around him. I love the card (especially the foil one I got from an FNM prize pack) but last night he felt like the worst card in the deck. I'm recanting my previous opinion on the card. It's probably a meta call, but it just felt bad.
Tragic Slip also seemed awkward at times (like after a Izzet Staticaster kills all my spirit tokens and I have 2 TS in hand with no board). Maybe just bad plays / luck on my part, plus my opponent in that match is really good. In fairness, he also seemed to hit a lot of his SB cards, whereas I hit zero.
Hope for better luck tomorrow.
Anyone interested in working on a SBing guide to add to the primer? I'd be happy to help if you guys want to discuss it and see if we can come to a consensus.
So I've been milling over a zombie aristocrats build for a while and online play testing has had reasonable results. I like to call it "Essentially Aristocrats" the deck list is as follows.
The main difference is that i run essence harvest and blood artist making the deck capable of more indirect damage. Because of the essence harvest I run bloodthrone vampire over Cartel Aristocrat which free's up my white dependency allowing me to play geralf's messenger and gravecrawler that both work very well with bloodthrone and have a higher base power than their human equivalents which helps ensure a relevant creature for essence harvest.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Check out my Sales 50% OFF everything for the next 48 hours.
Does sideboarding an Angel of Glory's rise make this a reanimator? Even as a 1 of? I can't help but wonder about the possibility of pulling all the humans back out in a long game.
Theoretically, you could sideboard Glory's rise, but the thing is, in that long drawn out game where you hit the 7 lands to cast it against the control deck, even after you've reanimated nothing, the only things that give you value are zealous conscripts and doomed traveler when dead. If say you reanimate stuff, conscripts whatever and attack, what likely happens is they Sphinx's revelation, refill there hand then wrath.
I'm pretty sure just playing another zealous conscripts or obzedat would be better since you're more likely to actually cast it on time and because Glory's rise doesn't attack control on any angle that you have a realistic chance of winning.
LP, I'm checking your article out as well. Behind all of your swag is the brain of one of the most intelligent Magic players I've ever known. I guess that's one more thing for you to add to the wall of ego that is your Sally sig.
I can go with that. LK, you are the Mace Windu of red mages...cool, tempered logic in deliberation, but capable of just flat kicking tail when the situation warrants it.
The change I made from Nielsen's deck is +1 Conscripts, -1 Sublime Archangel. I did the change I was expecting a lot of Thragtusk. In the rounds I didn't draw I faced Naya Midrange twice and Junk midrange/reanimator trice. Lingering Souls from Junk was very irritating, the one-of Bonfire I had in my SB did a lot of work the times I drew it. I will get a second Bonfire in the sideboard before the next event.
I could see SBing an Angel of Glory's Rise versus control, but I think the slot could be better spent.
Concerning Hellrider: I think he will be too hard to cast. The list I used only have 10 red sources (Cavern is often needed for Human or even Vampire), you could increase the number but I think Sublime Archangel is better because you will be able to cast it on time more often.
How much work did the Angels do? I'm not sure I like them.
How has Skirgsdag High Priest been for you guys? He has been completely useless for me, and I have only activated him once in twenty games across two events. Is it just me having bad luck, or does he suck for you guys too? I'm thinking I might switch them out for Boros Reckoner.
I scrubbed out at yesterday's GPT for Beijing. I was 2-4-0 for the day with a bye. I can't fathom how badly I'm losing. Part unreasonably bad luck, part inexperience with the deck / play mistakes, part opponents having perfect draws. For example, opponent and I have zero cards in hand, he has zero creatures on board, I have ZC and Cartel Aristocrat, he's at 2 life, I'm at 20, he tops his one of Supreme Verdict that he sided in, and then a Thragtusk and beats me from 20 to 0 while I hit a clump of 7 lands. It was that kind of day.
I played: Bant Control (0-2) Color screwed game 1, scenario above game 2. Naya Blitz (1-2) Very close game three in spite of 2x Hellrider. BYE Esper Control (2-1) Lost game 1, games 2 + 3 had nut draws. Bant Control(1-2) Thragtusk is a pretty cool card... especially when you get all four in one game Naya Midrange (1-2) Game 1 he mulled to 4, I curved out, game 2 I mulled to 5, he had a perfect hand, Game 3 (on the play) I had the following scenario:
I traded the Blood Crypts away after that and got new ones because I'm sure my original set were cursed.
Am I mulliganing too aggressively?
I have another GPT for Beijing next weekend. Going to try to hit MNM and FNM and maybe a Saturday event before then. Also plan to test with Solemn10 during the week.
I think this deck is very well positioned right now. It's one of the few decks that can realistically outrace/hold off against Naya Blitz. Not to mention it being extremely favoured against Junkrites G1. A bit surprised not to see more of this IRL.
The change I made from Nielsen's deck is +1 Conscripts, -1 Sublime Archangel. I did the change I was expecting a lot of Thragtusk. In the rounds I didn't draw I faced Naya Midrange twice and Junk midrange/reanimator trice. Lingering Souls from Junk was very irritating, the one-of Bonfire I had in my SB did a lot of work the times I drew it. I will get a second Bonfire in the sideboard before the next event.
I could see SBing an Angel of Glory's Rise versus control, but I think the slot could be better spent.
Concerning Hellrider: I think he will be too hard to cast. The list I used only have 10 red sources (Cavern is often needed for Human or even Vampire), you could increase the number but I think Sublime Archangel is better because you will be able to cast it on time more often.
How much work did the Angels do? I'm not sure I like them.
How has Skirgsdag High Priest been for you guys? He has been completely useless for me, and I have only activated him once in twenty games across two events. Is it just me having bad luck, or does he suck for you guys too? I'm thinking I might switch them out for Boros Reckoner.
I scrubbed out at yesterday's GPT for Beijing. I was 2-4-0 for the day with a bye. I can't fathom how badly I'm losing. Part unreasonably bad luck, part inexperience with the deck / play mistakes, part opponents having perfect draws. For example, opponent and I have zero cards in hand, he has zero creatures on board, I have ZC and Cartel Aristocrat, he's at 2 life, I'm at 20, he tops his one of Supreme Verdict that he sided in, and then a Thragtusk and beats me from 20 to 0 while I hit a clump of 7 lands. It was that kind of day.
I played:
Bant Control (0-2) Color screwed game 1, scenario above game 2.
Naya Blitz (1-2) Very close game three in spite of 2x Hellrider.
BYE
Esper Control (2-1) Lost game 1, games 2 + 3 had nut draws.
Bant Control(1-2) Thragtusk is a pretty cool card... especially when you get all four in one game
Naya Midrange (1-2) Game 1 he mulled to 4, I curved out, game 2 I mulled to 5, he had a perfect hand, Game 3 (on the play) I had the following scenario:
Opening 7
Blood Crypt, Blood Crypt, Doomed Traveller, Champion of the Parish, Nearheath Pilgrim, Silverblade Paladin, Silverblade Paladin
Mull to 6
Blood Crypt, Doomed Traveller, Champion of the Parish, Nearheath Pilgrim, Silverblade Paladin, Silverblade Paladin
Mull to 5
Blood Crypt, Champion of the Parish, Nearheath Pilgrim, Silverblade Paladin, Skirgsdag High Priest
Mull to 4
Blood Crypt, Isolated Chapel, Skirgsdag High Priest, Skirgsdag High Priest
My 2x High Priest couldn't match his T3 = T4 Huntmaster of the Fells
I traded the Blood Crypts away after that and got new ones because I'm sure my original set were cursed.
Am I mulliganing too aggressively?
I have another GPT for Beijing next weekend. Going to try to hit MNM and FNM and maybe a Saturday event before then. Also plan to test with Solemn10 during the week.
I have been sating that skirgsdag high priest is poor for a while. he is a terrible late game top deck and is magic xmas land when he is in your opening seven. his only use is to break staled boards. its better runnning anything over him. I cut him ling time ago.
The key to playing the deck is to be constantly aware of your gameplan. This isn't an agro deck, and it's not a midrange deck. It's basically half of both and you have to be good at switching gears based on what you draw and what the board state is.
A lot of the time, you'll have a hand of doomed traveler, cartel, and some removal. You'll attack for three here and there, play some removal, and gum up the board state while you draw underpowered cards like champion of the parish or knight of infamy against non-white deck. Then you draw something like Falkenrath aristocrat or Skirsdag high priest, and it becomes a game of figuring out how you can live long enough for either card to take over the game while converting normally bad topdecks like turn 6 1 drops 5/5 demon tokens or increasingly bigger falkenrath aristocrats. I've won a couple games with 7/4 FA's or 3 demon tokens.
LP, I'm checking your article out as well. Behind all of your swag is the brain of one of the most intelligent Magic players I've ever known. I guess that's one more thing for you to add to the wall of ego that is your Sally sig.
I can go with that. LK, you are the Mace Windu of red mages...cool, tempered logic in deliberation, but capable of just flat kicking tail when the situation warrants it.
Surprised there's not more love for Blood Artist. I play him and have won enough games off him to never want to play without him. Most opponents just forget he's there after a few turns. With all the sac-outlets, he's a great source of damage and life gain. He deters board wipes, or in the case of Boros Reckoner + Blasphemous Act, makes them that much more satisfying.
The key to playing the deck is to be constantly aware of your gameplan. This isn't an agro deck, and it's not a midrange deck. It's basically half of both and you have to be good at switching gears based on what you draw and what the board state is.
A lot of the time, you'll have a hand of doomed traveler, cartel, and some removal. You'll attack for three here and there, play some removal, and gum up the board state while you draw underpowered cards like champion of the parish or knight of infamy against non-white deck. Then you draw something like Falkenrath aristocrat or Skirsdag high priest, and it becomes a game of figuring out how you can live long enough for either card to take over the game while converting normally bad topdecks like turn 6 1 drops 5/5 demon tokens or increasingly bigger falkenrath aristocrats. I've won a couple games with 7/4 FA's or 3 demon tokens.
So Skirsdag has been working out for you then? Perhaps I'm just playing him wrong / haven't played the deck enough to get value out of him. I'll try it again this week, and if it doesn't work, he gets the axe.
I think this deck is very well positioned right now. It's one of the few decks that can realistically outrace/hold off against Naya Blitz. Not to mention it being extremely favoured against Junkrites G1. A bit surprised not to see more of this IRL.
Between main and side, I've been liking 3/4 threaten effects in the form of Conscripts and Mark of Mutiny.
Does anyone think they don't need GY hate in the board. I go back and forth with 1 purify the grave vs. 1 zealous conscripts in the board.
@ Johnny: Skirsdag mini-primer.
If High priest is in my hand by turn 2, it's usually my second play unless I have a hand that has another two drop and silverblade paladin. The priest is one of the top 3 cards in your deck as far as potential to win the game(the other two being conscripts and FA).
Against naya blitz, priest is fine, but more of a lategame play since the very first thing you need to do is stabilize and often, you find yourself making multiple blocks the first three turns. Once you stabilize though, it wins the game better then since the demon represents damage and board state.
Against the red decks, a lot of it's value is actually eating searing spear. Seriously, that's decent value since otherwise the priest is probably not doing anything in this matchup.
Against Jund, it's probably your best card after lingering souls. Typical jund games involve trading lots of cards, us having about an 8 point life lead, and then the board being like 2 guys on our side, a tusk on there side, and a couple cards in hand. Lots of wins come from having an active priest on board, sac outlets minimalizing the effects of bonfire, and your opponent having no profitable attacks without kessig in play.
Priest is bad game 1 vs. humanimator, and mediocre, but fine vs. junk reanimator. Against these type of decks, you're generally trying to race angel of serenity and priest and demon tokens are embarrassing vs. AoS. In boarded games are different because they're slower and both decks generally minimalize there reanimation effects. Priest is great vs. midrange decks and junk postboard is a bad midrange deck.
Vs. Control. Who cares because our deck laughs at control. Just resolve FA in a match and see how many azorius charms the other guy can play before he's dead.
LP, I'm checking your article out as well. Behind all of your swag is the brain of one of the most intelligent Magic players I've ever known. I guess that's one more thing for you to add to the wall of ego that is your Sally sig.
I can go with that. LK, you are the Mace Windu of red mages...cool, tempered logic in deliberation, but capable of just flat kicking tail when the situation warrants it.
BGStandard Green AggroGB
UWRGModern Saheeli CobraGRWU
UBRGLegacy StormGRBU
Wizards Certified Rules Advisor
so can we include zombie aristocrat talk or does this have to go under zombies. personally I think skirsdark priest is a wasted stop. it is too narrow of a card anf morbid is harder to achieve while maintaining early game pressure.
Posted from MTGsalvation.com App for Android
In other news, I think MJ has started playing The Aristocrats on his stream. I'll probably check that out latter and possibly link it.
Also what to board out against control? I know to bring in Sorin, More Souls and Obzedat (and Mentor).
Standard
UR Control
Modern
Merfolk
Burn
Avacyn did nothing wrong!
Purify Innistrad!
#Purge
Yeah, I thought we'd be in the R/x in the Proven section at least.
Standard
UR Control
Modern
Merfolk
Burn
Avacyn did nothing wrong!
Purify Innistrad!
#Purge
I don't think R/x is quite the right place for it, since it's white based. I guess they had a hard time choosing a place for us, but I am still surprised.
Will be playing The Aristocrats at FNM tonight, and a GPT on Sunday. Will of course post results. I won the last GPT I entered, so hoping for a good result.
My posts have the power of invisiblity and only a few people can read it!
RE Control: You want all of your cards to either be aggressive or to generate card advantage. Depending on your build, I like boarding out High Priest and most of the removal for Souls, Obzedat, Sorin, and Mentor of the Meek.
Standard
UR Control
Modern
Merfolk
Burn
Avacyn did nothing wrong!
Purify Innistrad!
#Purge
Cards you want are slip and any lifegain cards be it Cathedral sanctifier, nearheath pilgrim, or Rhox Faithmender. Lingering souls is actually generally to slow, especially on the draw against blitz, though I wouldn't board them out. Your best strategy is live long enough to stabilize as once you get to that point, you can win with pretty much anything.
Stromkirk noble decks are harder in the sense that the majority of your deck can't block stromkirk, and they have more reach/removal, but they're also a half step slower so you have more time for your slower spells to come online as long as you can dodge some of there reach on the way there.
If you post a list, I can give some more specific sideboard guides as list with and without reckoner are going to vary greatly.
Game one, if you can snag a Hellrider with ZC, it looks pretty good if you can curve out and/or have a bunch of Lingering Souls tokens. I agree it is too slow vs Blitz though and should probably be sided out.
Against Blitz, assuming this decklist: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/5163809
I think You probably board:
+3 Nearheath Pilgrim, +2 Tragic Slip, -3 Lingering Souls, -2 Zealous Conscripts.
LK, what's you opinion?
In other news, I went 1-2 at FNM last night.
I had exactly one game where I didn't have to mulligan (out of 8) and one game I had to concede after mull to 3. Was 0-3 in die rolls. Lost to Naya midrange (0-2), Grixis Control (Game one I conceded rather than play a 3 card hand 1-2) and beat Solemn10's Jund (2-0).
I'm going to assume that this was part bad luck and part unfamiliarity with the deck. Testing against Solemn10 after the event was much better. We'll see how the GPT goes tomorrow.
I think I'm going to run the list I posted above. I found that Boros Reckoner made a lot of my hands awkward and people were able to play around him. I love the card (especially the foil one I got from an FNM prize pack) but last night he felt like the worst card in the deck. I'm recanting my previous opinion on the card. It's probably a meta call, but it just felt bad.
Tragic Slip also seemed awkward at times (like after a Izzet Staticaster kills all my spirit tokens and I have 2 TS in hand with no board). Maybe just bad plays / luck on my part, plus my opponent in that match is really good. In fairness, he also seemed to hit a lot of his SB cards, whereas I hit zero.
Hope for better luck tomorrow.
Anyone interested in working on a SBing guide to add to the primer? I'd be happy to help if you guys want to discuss it and see if we can come to a consensus.
4 Godless Shrine
4 Blood Crypt
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Isolated Chapel
8 Swamp
Creatures
4 Blood Artist
4 Gravecrawler
4 Geralf's Messenger
4 Knight of Infamy
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
2 Diregraf Ghoul
3 Lingering Souls
3 Essence Harvest
3 Tragic Slip
1 Orzhov Charm
3 Mutilate
1 Lingering Souls
1 Victim of Night
2 Skirsdag High Priest
2 Vampire Nighthawk
2 Rest in Peace
The main difference is that i run essence harvest and blood artist making the deck capable of more indirect damage. Because of the essence harvest I run bloodthrone vampire over Cartel Aristocrat which free's up my white dependency allowing me to play geralf's messenger and gravecrawler that both work very well with bloodthrone and have a higher base power than their human equivalents which helps ensure a relevant creature for essence harvest.
I'm pretty sure just playing another zealous conscripts or obzedat would be better since you're more likely to actually cast it on time and because Glory's rise doesn't attack control on any angle that you have a realistic chance of winning.
How much work did the Angels do? I'm not sure I like them.
How has Skirgsdag High Priest been for you guys? He has been completely useless for me, and I have only activated him once in twenty games across two events. Is it just me having bad luck, or does he suck for you guys too? I'm thinking I might switch them out for Boros Reckoner.
I scrubbed out at yesterday's GPT for Beijing. I was 2-4-0 for the day with a bye. I can't fathom how badly I'm losing. Part unreasonably bad luck, part inexperience with the deck / play mistakes, part opponents having perfect draws. For example, opponent and I have zero cards in hand, he has zero creatures on board, I have ZC and Cartel Aristocrat, he's at 2 life, I'm at 20, he tops his one of Supreme Verdict that he sided in, and then a Thragtusk and beats me from 20 to 0 while I hit a clump of 7 lands. It was that kind of day.
I played:
Bant Control (0-2) Color screwed game 1, scenario above game 2.
Naya Blitz (1-2) Very close game three in spite of 2x Hellrider.
BYE
Esper Control (2-1) Lost game 1, games 2 + 3 had nut draws.
Bant Control(1-2) Thragtusk is a pretty cool card... especially when you get all four in one game
Naya Midrange (1-2) Game 1 he mulled to 4, I curved out, game 2 I mulled to 5, he had a perfect hand, Game 3 (on the play) I had the following scenario:
Opening 7
Blood Crypt, Blood Crypt, Doomed Traveller, Champion of the Parish, Nearheath Pilgrim, Silverblade Paladin, Silverblade Paladin
Mull to 6
Blood Crypt, Doomed Traveller, Champion of the Parish, Nearheath Pilgrim, Silverblade Paladin, Silverblade Paladin
Mull to 5
Blood Crypt, Champion of the Parish, Nearheath Pilgrim, Silverblade Paladin, Skirgsdag High Priest
Mull to 4
Blood Crypt, Isolated Chapel, Skirgsdag High Priest, Skirgsdag High Priest
My 2x High Priest couldn't match his T3 = T4 Huntmaster of the Fells
I traded the Blood Crypts away after that and got new ones because I'm sure my original set were cursed.
Am I mulliganing too aggressively?
I have another GPT for Beijing next weekend. Going to try to hit MNM and FNM and maybe a Saturday event before then. Also plan to test with Solemn10 during the week.
I have been sating that skirgsdag high priest is poor for a while. he is a terrible late game top deck and is magic xmas land when he is in your opening seven. his only use is to break staled boards. its better runnning anything over him. I cut him ling time ago.
Posted from MTGsalvation.com App for Android
A lot of the time, you'll have a hand of doomed traveler, cartel, and some removal. You'll attack for three here and there, play some removal, and gum up the board state while you draw underpowered cards like champion of the parish or knight of infamy against non-white deck. Then you draw something like Falkenrath aristocrat or Skirsdag high priest, and it becomes a game of figuring out how you can live long enough for either card to take over the game while converting normally bad topdecks like turn 6 1 drops 5/5 demon tokens or increasingly bigger falkenrath aristocrats. I've won a couple games with 7/4 FA's or 3 demon tokens.
So Skirsdag has been working out for you then? Perhaps I'm just playing him wrong / haven't played the deck enough to get value out of him. I'll try it again this week, and if it doesn't work, he gets the axe.
Why would u be favored g1 against Junk Rites?
">Helping to Invent Thopter/Depths in Old Ext
Creator of the Magic Humor Videos:
The Vintage Metagame The Original
This deck can out race rites very easily.
Does anyone think they don't need GY hate in the board. I go back and forth with 1 purify the grave vs. 1 zealous conscripts in the board.
@ Johnny: Skirsdag mini-primer.
If High priest is in my hand by turn 2, it's usually my second play unless I have a hand that has another two drop and silverblade paladin. The priest is one of the top 3 cards in your deck as far as potential to win the game(the other two being conscripts and FA).
Against naya blitz, priest is fine, but more of a lategame play since the very first thing you need to do is stabilize and often, you find yourself making multiple blocks the first three turns. Once you stabilize though, it wins the game better then since the demon represents damage and board state.
Against the red decks, a lot of it's value is actually eating searing spear. Seriously, that's decent value since otherwise the priest is probably not doing anything in this matchup.
Against Jund, it's probably your best card after lingering souls. Typical jund games involve trading lots of cards, us having about an 8 point life lead, and then the board being like 2 guys on our side, a tusk on there side, and a couple cards in hand. Lots of wins come from having an active priest on board, sac outlets minimalizing the effects of bonfire, and your opponent having no profitable attacks without kessig in play.
Priest is bad game 1 vs. humanimator, and mediocre, but fine vs. junk reanimator. Against these type of decks, you're generally trying to race angel of serenity and priest and demon tokens are embarrassing vs. AoS. In boarded games are different because they're slower and both decks generally minimalize there reanimation effects. Priest is great vs. midrange decks and junk postboard is a bad midrange deck.
Vs. Control. Who cares because our deck laughs at control. Just resolve FA in a match and see how many azorius charms the other guy can play before he's dead.